The Apple 30-inch Cinema Display is part of a new family of restyled HD displays, which includes a 20-inch and a 23-inch model. Designed as a companion for the Power Mac G5, its sleek, flat anodised aluminium case also lets you use two displays much closer to each other than before.
Upside
Big and beautiful, the LCD Cinema Displays jump on the all-digital DVI connection standard. DVI transmits a digital signal from a digital location in the graphics card to a digital location on the display's screen, so there is no distortion from analog conversion - a problem that can be caused by a weak VGA connection.
It has a whopping 2560 x 1600 resolution. Each display also includes a built-in FireWire 400 hub and a USB 2.0 hub, each with two ports.
Downside
The 30-inch Cinema HD Display requires the next level of DVI connectivity - a 'dual link' to drive the massive amount of pixels to the screen. Unfortunately, this DVI interface is currently found only on the AU$1049 Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL video card (Mac only), raising the price of the whole setup to over AU$7000. The display also requires a Power Mac G5, which starts at around AU$3,599 for a Dual 1.8 GHz and climbs up to AU$5,299 for a Dual 2.5 GHz model.
Outlook
If you want to feast your eyes on more than four million pixels on a high resolution 30-inch flat panel display, you must be prepared to sink over AU$10,650 for the luxury.
In the slightly less stratospheric department, the 20-inch (1,680x1,050) and 23-inch (1,920x1,200) displays will only set you back AU$1,249 and AU$2,099 respectively. They also feature FireWire and USB ports, but use a standard DVI interface. If you have a graphics card that supports DVI with DDC technology for widescreen viewing, you will also be able to use the 20- and 23-inch Apple displays with a PC.
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videomasterz
24/12/2006, 03:05 PM
rating
10/10
Had the Apple Cinema 30" for couple of months now, wow is all i can say at this beautiful display much much better than the Dell 3007wfp... users that both have the DELL 30" and the Apple 30" all say that Apple has whiter whites! Apples quality contorl is much better too, so you know your getting a quality product and not a product that was just rushed when being made. Apple has been making this lcd for awhile now so they have worked out all the bugs by now.
Pros: Birght LCD display, Accurate Colors, Beautiful Finish, Plays games very well, large real estate!, can open alot of internet browser windows at one time.
Cons: Kinda pricey, need a dual link dvi capable video card
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dave
13/02/2005, 02:34 AM
If you have the horsepower to run it, there's none better
Warning - this display will spoil you for anything smaller or less brilliant.
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15/09/2004, 02:26 PM
Apple have the market cornered on cool
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